I have my cable modem and wireless N router in the basement of my two story house, and am having dead spots on my second floor. I'm thinking about moving my cable modem and router to the first floor to see if it will clear up the dead spots. However, i only have one cable outlet on my first floor and it is attached to my DVR and TV. Currently, the cable jack in the basement attaches only to the cable modem. Here are my questions for those who can help:

1. Will a cable splitter allow me to attach both my DVR and cable modem to the same outlet? I have Comcast and live in the metro-DC area.

2. Will the cable splitter degrade the performance/quality of the signal to the DVR and cable modem?

3. Will the cable modem, wireless router, and DVR interfere with one another if they sit within a few feet of one another?

4. Will any cable splitter work, or is there one in particular that is useful in this situation?

The splitter is more likely to cause issues with your modem than image quality on your dvr. However, if you've never had regular connection problems in the past, you will likely be okay. As far as the electronics being in proximity to each other, I would just try to raise or separate the wireless router as much as possible due to emi. The other devices should be unaffected. This is a very basic answer, but as fast as splitter quality goes, I think the "1000 MHz" splitter choice us a good one. My RF knowledge is admittedly limited, but what you want is as much signal with as little noise as possible.

1: Yes, but if you have crappy signal from Comcast, the splitter may be enough to do your connection in. Fortunately, they're cheap. The cheaper, the noisier, generally

2: See 1. If you have good signal already, you'll be fine. If your signal is marginal, the splitter will make itself known. You'll get weak signal levels at the cmodem, and snow/artifacting on the cable tv.

3: No, Maybe, and No. The wireless portion of the router might pick up interference if it's near other electronics. Electronics are generally designed NOT to do this, but nothing is perfect.

4: Ask your local buddy/ tv installer... they'll generally recoil and tell you no don't do that, but if pressed they might divulge a product that is less crappy than the others. Google might also help.

(5) Q:Is Wireless N good for penetrating walls? A: Not as good as Wireless G. G is slower, but it penetrates better. If your N performance/signal levels are crappy, try getting a G receiver, assuming your router can transceive on G, and give that a shot. Sometimes you get better throughput with G, due to too much interference with N, even though N is faster. This might clear up or reduce your dead zone. Check router specs etc before purchasing anything.

(5) Q:Is Wireless N good for penetrating walls? A: Not as good as Wireless G. G is slower, but it penetrates better. If your N performance/signal levels are crappy, try getting a G receiver, assuming your router can transceive on G, and give that a shot. Sometimes you get better throughput with G, due to too much interference with N, even though N is faster. This might clear up or reduce your dead zone. Check router specs etc before purchasing anything.

802.11g and n both operate in the same 2.4GHz band and share the same penetration problem. N has support for a 5GHz band, but its not common (it's an optional part of the spec). Making the change from G to N will help range significantly. N has a higher functional range in part due to the additional bandwidth used in the N spec (40MHz vs 20MHz) along with the changes in encoding and the use of MIMO. Wikipedia has good information on the 802.11N spec along with the estimated ranges of the different specs (with citations).

The easiest solution would be to get a high-powered router and a set of high gain antennas. I use a Buffalo WHR-HP-G300N (set to 21dbm) with a pair of 9dbi antennas. This fixed my range problems in my two story (10 foot first floor ceilings, its about 30 foot from the router to the computer and I still connect at 54 for G and 150 for N). You can also change the settings on the router to improve range as the expense of throughput. Make sure 'turbo' mode is enabled for N on both the router and computer otherwise it limits to 20MHz of bandwidth. And finally, as mentioned by drifter, changing the orientation of the antennas can help as well (omnidirectional isn't really).

You could also add a network expander and put it on the top floor (up-side down). Just make sure its set to expand the network rather than replace it, and connect it via cable to the other router if at all possible at 1Gbit.

Also, get ATB to head over and run cable for you...

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